A Celebration of Literature by African American Authors and Notable Black Writers from Around the World

Selections from the collection of the Manchester Public Library

~COLLECTIONS~

Children of the Night: Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1967 to the Present - ed. by Gloria Naylor (1995)Confirmation: An Anthology of African-American Women - collected by Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Amina Baraka (1983)...........810.8Crossing the Danger Water: Three Hundred Years of African-American Writing - ed. and with an introduction by Deirdre Mullane (1993).............. 810.8Crossing The Dark and Feeling: Black American Writers and Their Works - ed. by Clarence Major (1974) ........ 810.9Dark Symphony - ed. by James A. Emanuel and Theodore L. Gross (1968)
A selection of earlier writings of major African-American writers ........... 810.8Father Songs: Testimonies by African-American Sons and Daughters - ed. by Gloria Wade-Gayles (1997)..........810.8National Black Drama Anthology: Eleven Plays From America's Leading African-American Theaters (1995)......... 812.008National The Norton Anthology of African American Literature - ed. by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay (1997)..........810.808

The African American Book of Values: Classic Moral Stories - edited and with commentary by Steven Barboza (1997) ........... 170.89
Famous and unknown authors speak of the values that support a good life.

Joseph L. White & James H. Cones III - Black Man Emerging: Facing the Past and Seizing a Future in America (1999) ............. 305.38 White The authors, distinguished academics in psychology and psychiatry, examine the factors, cultural and personal, which will enable black men in America to achieve their full potential.

Shelby Steele - The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America (1990 winner of National Book Critics Circle Award) and A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America .......... 305.8 Steele

George C. Fraser - Success Runs in Our Race: the Complete Guide to Effective Networking in the African-American Community (1994) .....650.13 Fraser

Romare Bearden - A History of African-American Artists from 1792 to the Present (1993) ........704 q Bearden

Regenia Perry - Free Within Ourselves: African-American Artists in the Collection of the National Museum of American Art (1992)........704.0396 q

The Blues is a Feeling: Voices & Visions of African-American Blues Musicians(1998)........ 781.643 q Fraher James Fraher's photographs and interviews pay magnificent tribute to the spirit and contributions of blues musicians.

Kpomassie, Tete-Michel -An African in Greenland (1983).......... 919.8204
A young African man, wishing to escape the fate destined for him in his homeland and fascinated by stories of Eskimos, makes his way to Greenland and lives among the people of the far North.

Edward Ball - Slaves in the Family (1998) Winner of the National Book Award

Michael H. Cottman - The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie: an African-American's Spiritual Journey to Uncover a Sunken Slave Ship's Past (1999).........975.941 Cottman, a Pulitzer Prize winning political writer for the Washington Post and a scuba diver, reconstructs the story of the journey and wreck of a British slave ship.

~RECENT BIOGRAPHY~

Rosemary L. Bray - Unafraid of the Dark (1998).......... B Bray
A former editor the The New York Times Book Review talks of the struggles of her childhood in Chicago, the value of the public support she received and her success as one of the first African-American women to attend Yale University.

Charles Evers - Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story (1997) ........ B Evers
Brother of the slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers and mayor of Fayette, Mississippi for 25 years, Charles Evers sheds new light on his brother's life and that of the Civil Rights movement.

Henry Louis Gates - Colored People: a Memoir (1994).......B Gates
The chairman of African American Studies at Harvard celebrates his family and the close community ties which influenced him as a child in West Virginia.

James McBride - The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute To His White Mother (1996) One of twelve children, the writer recounts his upbringing by his eccentric and determined white Jewish mother, an outcast from her own family and community, who gave to all her children the sense of personal respect which would enable them to succeed.

John McCline - Slavery in the Clover Bottoms (1998) ........B McCline
Born into slavery, John McCline escaped, worked for the Union Army during the Civil War, and went West to become a leader in the black community of Santa Fe.

Janet McDonald - Project Girl (1999) ............B McDonald
An academically gifted young woman raised in New York Public Housing, but educated with privileged children, is torn between two worlds.

Robert B. Stepto - Blue as the Lake: a Personal Geography (1998) ....... B Stepto
Yale Professor and Connecticut author, Robert Stepto, writes eloquently of a family history which reflects the importance of place in experience.

Juan Williams - Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary (1998) .......B Marshall
The host of the American Black Forum and author of Eyes on the Prize writes of the life and legacy of the first African-American Supreme Court Justice.

~POPULAR and LITERARY FICTION, POETRY, STORIES and PLAYS~

Achebe, Chinua - Nigeria
Honorary Fellow of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, this Nigerian author's works are read worldwide. Things Fall Apart (1994 c1959)...No Longer At Ease (1961)...Girls At War, and Other Stories (1973)...Anthills of the Savannah (1987 finalist for Booker Prize)...Arrow of God (1987)

Andre Alexis - Trinidad
Childhood (1998)

Maya Angelou - Traumatized as a child, Maya Angelou, though silent for five years, went on to a many-faceted career as an actress, director, playwright, screenwriter, editor, civil rights activist, poet and professor. Her many biographical works evidence the creative and resourceful resilience of African American women.
A sampling includes:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) B Angelou... All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986) 818.5409
Even The Stars Look Lonesome (1997)B Angelou
Sampling of Poetry: Life Doesn't Frighten Me (1993) 811.54...Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (1994) 811.54. - Many other titles available

Tina McElroy Ansa
Baby of the Family (1989)...Ugly Ways (1993)...The Hand I Fan With (1996)

Erroll J. Bailey, M.D. - founder of Dream Merchants, Inc., a youth empowerment and mentoring program for troubled children
Mr. Dream Merchant (1998) Inspirational story which illuminates what is necessary for a good life.

James Baldwin (1924-1987) playwright, essayist, novelist and social critic
Stifled by social and racial attitudes, James Baldwin wrote some of his most important works in France where he blossomed as an artist with a social conscience. Best known for his autobiographical novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), the author also wrote: If Beale Street Could Talk (1974)
Plays: Blues for Mister Charlie...Amen Corner (812)...One Day, When I Was Lost (812)......... Devil Finds Work: an Essay (791.43)....... Notes of a Native Son (305.8)

Charles Waddell Chesnutt1858-1932
Major contributor to early literature in stories, novels and journals
Conjure Woman and Other Tales...Short Fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt...Mandy Oxendine: a novel...Journals of Charles W. Chesnutt (814.403)

Alice Childress - novelist and author of several children's books
A Short Walk (1979)
Like One of the Family: Conversations From a Domestic's Life (1986)

Edwidge Danticat - Born in Haiti, and now a resident of New York, Edwidge Danticat was named one of the 20 Best Young Novelists by Granta in 1998.
Breath Eyes, Memory (1998 c1994)
Krik? Krak! (1995) - Nominated for National Book Award...Farming of Bones (1998)

Tanarive Due
The Between (1995) - A thriller and tale of the supernatural. A man whose grandmother rescued him from drowning struggles to keep his life together when his family is threatened by racial threats...My Soul To Keep (1997)

Erika Ellis
Good Fences (1997)

Ralph Ellison (1914-1994)
Invisible Man (1952) - Immensely influential story in which a young man's trust in goodness is betrayed by a society in which racial considerations render him invisible as an individual. The author won the National Book Award for this powerful novel. He saw literature as a "raft of hope" needed to navigate the "snags and whirlpools that mark our nation's vacillating course toward and away from the democratic ideal."Selection of other works: Flying Home and Other Stories (1996)...Shadow and Act -809.8...Going to the Territory - 818.5409

Alex Haley 1921-1992 Winner of Pulitzer Prize for Roots
Mama Flora's Family (1998)Biographical non-fiction:Roots: the Saga of an American Family (1976) 929.2 - Traces family history from mid-eighteenth century when an ancestor was sold into
slavery through subsequent generations in America.Alex Haley's Queen (1993 sequel to Roots ) 929.2
Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)

E. Lynn Harris - Author deals with themes of interpersonal relationships and sexual identity.
Just as I Am (1995)...And This Too Shall Pass (1996) (print & cassette version)
If This World Were Mine (1997)

Mars Hill
The Moaner's Bench (1998) - A young man comes of age in Depression era Arkansas
in the author's debut novel.

Sheneska Jackson
Caught Up in the Rapture (1996) - A minister's daughter becomes romantically involved with a rap singer who has a criminal record and learns to respect her true values.
Blessings (1998)

Jamaica Kincaid - Born in St. John's, Antigua, this West Indian author has written several autobiographical novels
Annie John (1985)...Lucy (1990)...Autobiography of My Mother (1996)

Nella Larsen
An Intimation of Things Distant: The Collected Fiction of Nella Larsen (1992)
The author's focus was on the constricted lives of middle class African American women. Nella Larsen was an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance and the first African-American woman to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Terry McMillan - With humor and wit the author portrays contemporary men and women . . . their loves, ambitions, and family struggles.
Mama (1987)...Disappearing acts (1989)...Waiting to exhale (1992)
How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1996

Ann Petry1911-1997 Connecticut Author, Old Saybrook
The Street (1946) The author's starkly realistic story of a poor African-American woman's struggle for survival in urban America became a bestseller in 1946 and is regarded as a classic in African-American Literature.
Narrows (1953)...Country Place (1971)...Tituba of Salem Village (1964) J-YP Petry

Linda Raymond
Rocking the Babies (1994 - Two grandmothers, one middle class and one poor, share their experiences while volunteering in the newborn unit at a hospital and overcome their initial distrust to become friends.)

Kimberla Lawson Roby
Here and Now (1999) - A contemporary story of two sisters each of whom believes the other has a better life; one who is married and financially secure longs for children while the other must struggle on her own to support herself and her child.

Rosemarie Robotham
Zachary's Wings (1998)

Dori Sanders
Clover (1990 - Story of race relations in the modern South)
Her own Place (1993)

Sapphire
Push (1996) An emotionally and sexually abused young woman becomes pregnant by her father and struggles to develop a sense of self and a better life for her child.

Richard S. Wright 1908-1960
Though Richard Wright had little formal education, his passion for reading and early work won him a Guggenheim Fellowship which helped support his work on Native Son (1940). The author's most influential work, it is a shocking story of the brutal effects racism and violence, themes which would be passionately put forth by the author throughout his career.
Other works: Uncle Tom's Children...Outsider...Early Works
Biography: Black Boy (American Hunger) a Record of Childhood and Youth (1945) B Wright

Note: In addition to the selections above, the Manchester Public Library maintains many other titles by African American authors and works by other authors which focus on experiences, history and contributions of African Americans. Our staff will be pleased to assist you in following your interests.